


i will carry you to freedom

by MayWilder



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A little morning after fluff, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cheesy, I tag too much, M/M, Theon doesn't betray Robb, he's a real mess tho, like real fucking cheesy, on with the show!, throbb - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 12:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17304851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayWilder/pseuds/MayWilder
Summary: Theon is still falling to pieces. His forehead drops to Robb’s and they breathe in each other, lips barely not touching. He knows they’ve never been this close, and he isn’t sure what to do. Theon’s chest is heaving as if he’s fought a terrible battle. Robb supposes he has, always has.“I had to choose.” Theon is back to croaking out words. “I had to either sail for Winterfell and take it from Starks or come back here and show you loyalty so that you could take my head. Either way, I was returning to people who never loved me, people who made me fight for and earn affection. My choices were to betray you or die and I…I chose to die.”





	i will carry you to freedom

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up and wrote this at three am and went back to sleep

Robb is sleeping when he feels pressure on his body and his wrists being tugged. For a moment, he thinks he’s still dreaming. There’s a familiar shape pressing against him. Its one he knows from tight hugs and wrestling matches that led to fierce dreams of a lithe male body sliding easily against his. Teeth rake against his neck and he groans loudly, grasping at the tunic of the man he so secretly desires. Robb now knows he is dreaming because this has only happened at night, eyes closed and hand in his trousers.

 

But then, something shifts. The hands around his wrists tighten and pull Robb’s arms above his head. He arches up, seeking the connection with this man. Its that moment when he hears the chainmail clink in the familiar changing of the guard. Every night, outside Robb’s tent, his men rotate to stay alert. In all of his dreams, there is no disruption. There’s only a bed at Winterfell, a roaring fire, and the man Robb’s heart has always belonged to.

 

In his dreams, there is only Theon.

 

His eyes shoot open. Its dark, but he’s not a wolf for nothing, and he is able to make out features he’s spent years obsessing over. Theon Greyjoy hovers above him, pinning him into the bed.

 

The ironborn blinks, and a tear falls onto Robb’s cheek.

 

“Do you know that I have spent my entire life at war with myself?” Theon croaks. He looks like he’s in pain, face contorted with something unnamable. There’s a tremble to his bones. Robb wants to know if its desire or anger.

 

“Theon, when did you get back?” Robb asks softly, intent not to scare him off. “Just now?”

 

Theon ignores the question and goes on. “I was supposed to hate you. Your father spent his life teasing an axe over my head. My life meant nothing, it was a bargaining chip. I was supposed to hate you and love my family. And yet, my family did not—does not—love me. They don’t give a rat’s bloody arse what happens to me. My father had war ships built, did you know that? He was preparing to launch an attack, breaking the terms of his arrangement. He still is. Fucking Balon Greyjoy!”

 

He now shakes is intensely that Robb is able to release from his grip. That draws Theon’s attention, however, and he launches at Robb again. They roll from the bed, Robb landing with a groan of pain on his hip. Two guards rush in at the sound and Robb tries to wave them off, even as he twists out of Theon’s grip and pulls two arms diagonally across his chest. They must be a sight, Theon attempting to jerk away and Robb fighting to keep him firm.

 

“Stand back, men!”

 

“Your Grace!” one of the guards exclaims, drawing a sword. “You mustn’t—

 

“I’m the damned king, I’ll say what—by the god’s Theon—I’ll say what I mustn’t do! Leave us.”

 

“But, Your Grace—

 

“ _Do not make me repeat myself!_ ”

 

They exit swiftly.

 

“Theon—” Robb grunts out. He falls back with the force of Theon throwing weight into his chest. It knocks air from his lungs and he has to scramble to avoid his best friend climbing back up his body. “Theon, what is this about?”

 

“My family,” Theon sobs. “Who is my family, Robb? The people who call me your lap dog and think I betrayed them? Or the people who will kill me the moment Balon rebels?”

 

Robb ducks to avoid a pillow of all things being thrown at him. “And this is somehow my fault? I don’t think that’s fair, you prick.”

 

“It is your fault!” Theon lunges again and Robb’s pushed into his desk. His hip is most certainly bruised now, as Theon grabs his face and is back to trembling. “My father tore your proposal in half, my love. He didn’t read it, because he has no care to follow any sort of direction from you. He wants independence and he’s going to revolt.”

 

Robb’s stomach sinks, even as his heart soars because Theon has just called him “my love.”

 

“He told me to take _Winterfell_.” Theon sobs out the name of their home. “The only place I knew kindness, yet somewhere I was never safe.”

 

Robb grasps the front of Theon’s tunic. “Darling, you were always safe with me. How could you not know that?”

 

Theon is still falling to pieces. His forehead drops to Robb’s and they breathe in each other, lips barely not touching. He knows they’ve never been this close, and he isn’t sure what to do. Theon’s chest is heaving as if he’s fought a terrible battle. Robb supposes he has, always has.

 

“I had to choose.” Theon is back to croaking out words. “I had to either sail for Winterfell and take it from Starks or come back here and show you loyalty so that you could take my head. Either way, I was returning to people who never loved me, people who made me fight for and earn affection. My choices were to betray you or die and I…I chose to die.”

 

Robb is crying now, too, as he and Theon slide to the ground. He holds the other man tightly against his chest, letting the wetness of tears soak into his neck. “Oh, Theon…”

 

“You have to be worth death, Robb. I have forsaken my family, just so I could die with you knowing that I am loyal to you. That I am your lap dog, beg ging for scraps of love and not caring if I get kicked to the side. I have forsaken them for you, and you better be fucking worth it, Stark.”

 

Robb swallows his own sob and presses a kiss to Theon’s hair. “I’ve done you a terrible injustice, then, if you think you are kicked to the side. If you think nobody here loves you. If you think…if you think _I_ don’t love you.”

 

“You can’t mean that,” Theon rasps. The sobs have died down, but the trembling hasn’t. “What do I have to offer you?”

 

“Joy,” Robb says fiercely. He pulls back to look at Theon, imploring him to understand. “You can give me laughter and wisdom. Loyalty, memories of home, and the smell of salt in your hair even when you haven’t touched the sea in years. You can give me my best friend, you can give me…a warm bed and a place to leave my heart.”

 

Theon takes a sharp breath. His nails dig into the spots above Robb’s collarbone as if they can sink into each other. “I never dreamed…”

 

“I did,” Robb admits. He tilts his chin forward. “I do, and I will. I love you, Theon. You are my council and my strength, and I will never be able to do this without you.”

 

Robb brushes his lips across Theon’s in a tentative question.

 

“Thank you for coming back, for choosing me. Choose me again, in this moment, as I choose you. Now and always.”

 

A sort of strangled noise tumbles from Theon’s lips before he’s closing the distance between them. The kiss is unbearably wet, salty, and Theon is still shaking. Yet, Robb feels something in his chest open. His ribs are no longer crushed with the weight of holding back desire. He is able to slide his hands under Theon’s tunic. He finds toned muscle and a patch of wiry hair. He finds that Theon likes it, groans into the kiss and licks his way past Robb’s lips.

 

Robb wants to die on the spot because nothing will ever compare to this. To Theon, a familiar shape that Robb has always wanted, sliding onto his lap to be closer.

 

“I love you,” Robb murmurs against his lips. “Don’t ever leave me again. I can’t bear it, now I know.”

 

“Now and always, I am by your side,” Theon promises. “My loyalty belongs to you, my body, my heart—please don’t let me down. I know its terribly unfair, but Robb…”

 

“I know.” Robb says this because he does know. He heard Theon clearly, agonizing over the pain of his family. “I have to be worth it.”

 

“I think you already are,” Theon chuckles. He shifts and Robb is very much aware that they’ve been pushing against one another, bodies crying for something that’s been denied for years.

 

Robb grips Theon’s hips and pulls them down against his own. Theon gives Robb that special smirk and leans in. “I think I know how to kneel and pledge my heart to your reign.”

 

“Oh?” Robb breathes back. They kiss again, filthy with how clear the intent is.

 

“If I’m going to bed the wolf king,” Theon murmurs, nipping at the stubble-covered jaw of Robb’s face. “it best be done like a wolf would do it.”

 

Robb feels like he can’t breathe at the bold worlds and leans back into a kiss. “I hope you aren’t too tired from your journey, darling.”

 

“There’s certainly a way to test that.”

* * *

 

(“Theon, I won’t let anyone take you from me.”

 

“Even yourself? You would have to be the one to—

 

Robb cuts Theon off with a kiss. Their hands are desperately grabbing at skin, hard enough to hurt. “There is no pact or war or kingship that will stop us from being together.”

 

“Ever the romantic.” The corner of Theon’s mouth quirks up.

 

“You tried to strangle me and said you were ready to die rather than betraying me, like one of Sansa’s stories.”

 

“I did not try to _strangle_ you!”)

 

* * *

 

When the sun rises the next morning, its to his mother standing over the bed, looking down at Theon and Robb with the mask she always wears when angry.

 

“Robb,” she says quietly. “What is the meaning of this?”

 

“Mother, I…” Robb swallows. Theon is stirring next to him, blinking into wakefulness the practiced lazily way that must mean he doesn’t want to face the wolf mother. The hesitancy in his lover’s actions makes Robb remember the night before, Theon sobbing that ‘you better be fucking worth it, Stark” and whispering, “please don’t let me down.”

 

He squares his shoulders. “Mother, I love Theon and there’s nothing you or anyone else will do about it.”

 

“But Lord Frey—

 

“I swore my heart and body to Theon, I will not give it to another.”

 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Theon scoffs. He pushes into a sitting position (with a slight wince) and shakes his head at Robb. “You have to marry the Frey girl. You’re a Stark and a Tully, you must know that your honor rides on you fulfilling your duty.”

 

Robb shakes his head and brings a hand to cup Theon’s jaw. “No. No, I won’t.”

 

“I will love you until I draw my last breath,” Theon swears seriously. There’s a sort of steel in his eyes. “But you need Frey’s men, you need to save your sisters, and you need to fulfill the pact that you made. I will not begrudge you that.”

 

“I won’t send you away.”

 

“And I will be on your kingsguard, serving you faithfully. Now and always.”

 

Catelyn makes an odd noise in the back of her throat. She looks somehow both pleased and annoyed. “Enjoy each other while you can, Robb, but you must understand the importance of this alliance.”

 

Robb nods.

 

“Greyjoy…” Catelyn adds. She clears her throats and nods. “Wise council. You’ll want to report to whatever happened with your father to the rest of Robb’s generals so we can plan.”

 

She leaves the room swiftly. Theon lets outs a groan and falls back on the mattress. Robb chuckles and joins him, feeling warm and content as he snuggles against Theon’s taller form. “I don’t want to be an adulterer, Theon, but how am I supposed to never have you again?”

 

“Perhaps you’ll have a modern wife, who doesn’t mind a certain openness to things,” Theon suggests. “Or perhaps…”

 

He twists around so that Robb is now on his back, Theon straddling him and trapping their morning arousals together. “Perhaps you will take me as a salt wife, a prize of war to do all your _sexual_ bidding.”

 

“Aye,” Robb grins up. “And then we’d both die for defying the Seven under a country that rules with the Faith.”

 

“Your Old Gods do not care about silly things such as sex. Love is for souls.”

 

“Then we shall have to dismantle the Faith Militant.”

 

All teasing and laughter, they succumb to kisses and warm sheets and wondering hands.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm maywildflowers on tumblr. hit me up for a trash can of my faves


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